"Clipper" A Short Story

A new dark side to skateboarding.

Clipper

Rory Gladwell doesn’t recognize him until he’s almost at her register, one customer away. She double takes, then triple takes, then asks the customer she’s attending to tell her their order one more time.

“Oat milk latte, with two expresso shots,” the regular with the orange beard says.

“All of our ess-presso drinks come with two shots,” Rory says, her response automated. The bearded man should know this. She shouldn’t have to repeat the phrase or correct his pronunciation. He’s not European, he doesn’t get a pass.

“Great,” he says, but Rory is only thinking about the person in line behind him. She knows his face as if he’s a regular, but she’s only ever seen him on the internet and in print magazines. His slender, handsome face. Bushy eyebrows and perfect skin. Three years ago, she literally pinned his portrait onto the wall of her dorm room. Right next to Harry Styles and Timothée Chalamet. And now he’s in her coffee shop. Rory blacks out during his order. She can barely make eye contact. Luckily there’s a machine recording what he says. Rory is merely the input bot, tapping her fingers. The barista will do the Lord’s work. He’s with a friend, a tall, skinny white guy she recognizes from podcast interviews and behind-the-scenes Instagram and TikTok videos. He’s the cameraman, the man who made the man—her favorite man. Timothée and Harry have nothing on Deon fucking Magnus.

“I’ll have a cold brew, please,” the filmer says next. Larry is his name. Larry Thompson. He’s a genius. The fangirl in her must be showing because she hasn’t asked their names but has carried out their orders with their names attached. Surely she’s blushing. They have to know she knows who they are.

“Your drinks will be ready around the corner,” Rory says, another automated response. She’s conscious of the NPC-like phrases shooting from her mouth, but she can’t hold them back. The professional thing to do would be to strike up a conversation, but she can’t.

“Yo, this is kinda random,” Larry says. “But you skate, right?”

OK, now there’s no way her face isn’t a bursting explosion of red. Her cheeks physically hurt.

“Yeah,” she says, fiddling with the iPad. She flips it toward Larry, then flips it back. He’d already signed and tipped. Generously.

“I’ve seen your videos,” Larry says. “You rip.”

Did he really just fucking say that?

“Yo, Deon. This is that girl I was telling you about!”

Deon looks up from his phone and smiles at her. It’s a different smile than the one he just used to order his whatever-the-hell he ordered. Different from the smiles she’s seen a million times on the internet. This one is directed at her, meant for her.

“The heel-fifty girl?”

“That’s me,” she says. She can’t believe this is happening.

“You rule,” Deon says. His voice is soft and sweet, different than he sounds on podcasts.

“We just drove up from LA,” Larry says. “Frisco for the weekend. I was just showing Deon that spot you skate, the new one, right? Where is that?”

He’s referring to a recent video she posted of herself skateboarding that went viral. She likes to think it’s because of the execution of the trick, a heelflip frontside 50-50 on a brand new hubba inside a school in West Portal, but she knows the six hundred thousand views have more to do with her outfit and the fact that she went braless that day.

“It’s on the other side of The City,” Rory says. “That hubba is so perfect, ohmygod. You’d love it.”

She hates herself for saying “ohmygod” like that. Totally unnecessary. Rory smiles, but she’s pretty sure Deon isn’t even paying attention anymore. Larry is staring at her. He’s probably thirty-something. She’d never really thought about his age before. Could be twenty or could be fifty. He’s just a part of Deon, an accessory human. Deon’s twenty-six, only three years older than she is, but having followed his career like a desperate groupie for the last ten years, he seems much older.

“You down to show us that spot? And come skate it with us? We’re planning on skating Clipper too, but that could be a good warm up spot.”

“I’ve still never skated Clipper!” Rory says.

“You should come!” Deon says. He’s just picked up his drink. “That would be dope.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Rory says. Her chest is tight, face flushed anew. This can’t be happening.

“Perfect,” Larry says. “Cool if I hit you on Instagram? We can come pick you up or we can just meet you at the spot.”

“Let’s meet at the spot,” Rory says. She likes the confidence in her tone, the independence. She has no idea where it’s coming from.

“Cool,” Larry says. “I’ll hit you up.”

---

“Who is he again?” Rory’s grandmother asks. Rory called her the second her shift ended. This invitation feels like the biggest step toward her dream, the “in” she’s been waiting for, and she needs to share it with someone who might actually care. “Is he the Black one or the Mexican one?”

“C’mon, Nonna, I made you watch all his videos,” she says. “He’s from Seattle. Black, yeah. Also Thai, but it doesn’t matter. Point is, I’ve been obsessed with him since I was like thirteen. He’s all I used to talk about.”

“That’s right,” her grandmother says, lying. She doesn’t remember.

“Anyway, I’m going to skate with him and his filmer tomorrow. He’s, like, one of the best filmers in skateboarding. He basically turned Deon into the famous skater he is today.”

“How?” Nonna asks. An astute question Rory isn’t sure how to answer.

“It’s just, like, the way he films . . . and edits. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. He just makes people look really f-ing cool.” She barely remembers to self-edit. Nonna hates swearing, especially the f-word. She wouldn’t hang up on her if she let it slip, but she’d tune out.

“That’s wonderful, honey,” she says. “I’m so proud of you.”

Rory hesitates to ask how Nonna is doing, fearing the question will turn the conversation dark. She knows Nonna isn’t doing well. The symptoms were back yesterday, stronger than ever, and they couldn’t have gone away already. Before she has a chance to ask, Nonna says, “Your father wrote.”

“Did he?” Rory says. “Still alive, huh? How unfortunate.”

“Ror-ry, honey. That’s not kind.”

“C’mon, Nonna. You know I’m joking. But you also know I don’t like hearing about Dad. He’s your son, but I don’t consider him my—”

“Don’t say it, please, Rory. Just don’t, not today.”

Considering the events of the day and the good mood she’s in, Rory decides she can resist her usual spitefulness. Even if it’s indirectly toward the man who ruined her life.

“How is he doing?”

“Oh, not too well. But well enough. He sends his love, of course. You should know he’s thinking of you, every day. He wrote a great deal, but . . . well, I’ll let you read it some time if you’d like. He’s reading loads, he says. Scripture, and other books. It’s good to hear. Warmed my heart, it did.”

Rory stops walking and looks up at the sky, holding back tears. She imagines Nonna sitting on her worn wingback. There was a day it was red, supposedly, but Rory never knew it like that. Sun and several decades turned it to the faded orange it is today. She has to end the call, otherwise there will be real tears, and guilt, and pain. She doesn’t want to feel that today.

“I had a good feeling about today,” Nonna says. “You saw the date, right?”

“No, what is it?”

“June twentieth. Six two zero. And the year makes it a palindrome. I don’t much care for the sixes, you know that. But palindromes are good luck. Six two zero two zero two two six. Both ways! Very special.”

“Oh, the bus is coming,” Rory lies. “I gotta go. I love you, Nonna.”

“I love you too, dear. I’m so proud of you.”

At home, Rory Googles care facilities in Louisville again. If she wasn’t currently living in one of the most expensive places on Earth, she’d consider searching the Bay Area. But there’s no way she could afford anywhere in California. And that’s why she promised Nonna nothing longer than a year. One year of going for the thing she’s loved since she was seven years old. Really going for it, to make it her job. A career! And if after one year it doesn’t work out, she’ll move back to get a real job and help her grandmother for as long as she’s needed. The person who has taken care of her since she was twelve years old. She’s eight months in. Only four to go.

She picked San Francisco because it was once the mecca. Some say it has lost its meccaness, but Rory thinks it’s back. A distorted mecca, sure. A grungier, more alcoholic mecca. But the feeling she got during her California tour before the move was that the energy was strong here in The City, much stronger than LA or San Diego. New York wasn’t an option for her, what with their winters. Barcelona was too far away. It had to be California, and it had to be a city where she didn’t need a car. If she was going to give herself one year, a clean three hundred and sixty five days, every one of them had to count. So far, most days only counted for serving coffee to rich people—and sometimes super not rich people—at the only job she could lock down that afforded the flexibility she needed. Flexibility like asking for a Saturday off, last minute, so she can go skateboarding.

“Sure,” her manager, Mike, said. “Get it, girl.”

Rory knows he has a crush on her. He covers her shifts at the register whenever she needs him to, but she rarely ever plays this hand unless it’s absolutely necessary. She doesn’t want to “owe” him anything. But this is different. A session with Deon and Larry! And Rory, a recent, still pretty clueless, transplant, will be their guide? It all feels like a daydream. Too surreal to let herself believe it’s really happening.

That night, as Rory eats Chinese food in her kitchen, Larry DM’s her and asks if she has a shoe sponsor. She responds with a no. Larry DM’s back, quickly, asking her shoe size. She tells him that she’s a seven in women’s. Unable to resist, she asks why. “Any interest in trying out Deon’s new shoe?” he asks. “Um, ya totally!” She types. Then retypes. “Yeah, for sure,” then retypes again. “Totally!” Sent. She’s so embarrassed. But Larry responds with a thumbs-up emoji, so she lets herself breathe. Her roommate, Fiona, sits down next to her on the couch as she sets her phone down.

“Who you texting?” Fiona asks. She’s the most annoying of her roommates. The other two are quiet girls who work in tech. She often wonders how much money those two are able to tuck away each month. Like Rory, Fiona works in service and also barely scrapes together her seven hundred dollars for rent. It’s a cramped, two-bedroom Mission Street apartment that has passed between so many people, what’s left are four strangers coexisting and occasionally conversing. Not so different from the dorms her first two years at UofL. But moldier and sketchier with lots more street noise.

“Making plans for tomorrow,” Rory says. “I’ll be out early, it looks like.”

“Better tell Juliet,” Fiona says. “You know how hard she goes on Friday nights.”

While quiet during the week, Juliet, who she shares a room with, lets loose on the weekend. Rory’s hope is that this Friday, like the last two, she won’t come home.

“It’ll be fine,” Rory says. “What are you up to tonight?”

“I had a shitty week at the restaurant, I can’t imagine talking to people or being social. I’m probably just going to keep bingeing Gilmore Girls. I can make room in my bed if you want to watch?”

Rory has had the Gilmore Girls conversation with Fiona twice already, and she doesn’t want to do it again. Either Fiona has forgotten the details, or she’s just that callous.

“Thanks, but I’m just gonna go to bed early.”

“No worries,” Fiona says. “See you . . . well, probably not in the morning. And my shift ends hella late tomorrow night. So, see you when I see you, I guess.”

Fiona doesn’t close the door to her room and Rory hears the show come on. She takes out her headphones and plugs them into her phone, quickly finding a skate video to watch before the theme song comes on. She can’t risk hearing it.

---

Deon and Larry are late, but that’s OK. Warming up always takes a long time, especially when she has jitters like this. That’s why Rory never bothered with contests. In those environments, with all those eyes on her, the jitters never go away. She hopes they will today.

“Yo, sorry we’re so late,” Larry says, when they eventually arrive. “Deon wanted to go to this brunch spot, and it took forever.”

“No worries,” she says. The morning is foggy and cold, but after an hour of skating by herself—making three straight eights, and almost a straight sixteen—she’s ready to take off her sweatshirt. Something about the move seems too forward, though, now that they’re next to each other in the schoolyard. She doesn’t want to come off like she was waiting for them to arrive to take her sweatshirt off. It’s a light hoodie, and she planned on wearing it for the whole day. But she knows the attention the shirt she’s wearing under it draws when she gets sweaty like this, and decides to wait.

“Where’s the hubba?” Larry asks.

“It’s over in the back of the school,” Rory says. “Want me to show you?”

“Fuck yeah,” Larry says. “That thing doesn’t seem real. Oh by the way, here’s a pair of Deon’s new shoe, if you want to try them.”

“Are you serious?” she says.

“Yeah, for sure! Let us know what you think.”

“Thank you!”

She removes the hoodie and puts on the shoes as Larry sizes up the hubba. She feels a little weird, since just last month she received a free pair of Vans from some guy on the internet who says he works for the company. That felt like a stepping stone toward sponsorship. Pre-flow, if not a full on flowship. She likes skating Vans, has always skated Vans, but this Lissé shoe isn’t really that different from a Vans. They’re comfortable and fit perfectly.

Deon eventually shows up, and his famous ADD energy sends him straight to the top of the stairs. He’s talking to Rory and Larry, but it’s more of a rambling stream of consciousness. The questions he asks don’t need answers. The ideas he ponders aren’t discussions. Soon he’s skating the hubba with the relaxed ease he’s famous for. Larry takes out his iPhone and films everything he does. Rory isn’t sure what to do. Jump in and skate with him, or continue skating flatground off to the side? Really, all she wants to do is watch her hero do his thing.

“Man, that heelflip fifty you did on this is so sick,” Larry says. He’s walked over to where Rory is standing, where he left his camera bag. Opening it up, he begins screwing on lenses, attaching batteries and extending tripods. Noting the particulars of his gear, Rory does some quick math and starts to feel a little anxious about the number. They’re alone in this schoolyard with a casual sixty thousand dollars in camera gear.

“Thanks,” she says. “It was fun.” Lies, she thinks. Such lies. That trick wasn’t fun at all. It was torture. But she did it, after a battle, and made it look easy. A trick Deon, if he was regular-footed, could do in his sleep. In fact, he could probably do it switch in a couple of tries.

“You think you got that on Clipper?” Larry asks.

“No way,” Rory says. “I mean, I haven’t skated it before, but Clipper is huge. This thing is baby.”

“No, you got that,” Larry says. “Let’s get that today.”

He’s holding up the camera with the fisheye lens. It’s an 8k Sony that retails for twenty-five grand, the lens and accessories probably add up to another five. Thirty thousand dollars in his hand as he winks and then rolls away from her. Skating over to Deon, he absentmindedly fiddles with some settings. Two tripod angles follow, and eventually there are three cameras on the hubba. Deon rifles through a handful of basics and Rory eventually asks if she can skate with him.

“Of course,” he says. She feels his eyes on her differently, now that she’s taken off the hoodie, but she pretends not to notice. They take turns skating the hubba. She grinds it, tailslides it, and tries a nosegrind. Her legs won’t stop shaking. She’s not on her A game. They both cheer her on and Larry films everything. Deon throws out two impossibly difficult tricks, but doesn’t come close to landing them. Flails. He doesn’t even try to try, and Rory wonders why.

“All right, I’m ready to hit Clipper,” Deon says after sitting down. Rory is still battling the nosegrind.

“OK, I’m down,” she says, panting. Rory is not actually down. Far from it. With her inability to confidently skate this small, seven-stair hubba, how will she even approach the enormous twelve-stair? She’s happy to no longer look like a fool with her nosegrind attempts. Larry, without pushing her to keep trying, begins packing up. She finds this strange, rude even. Like his gesture to film her was entirely insincere. While partially relieved, she’s also offended and embarrassed. Clearly, they don’t see any potential in her. They weren’t impressed. All her fears of not being good enough are validated.

“Before we go, can I just film you do a heelflip on flat?” Larry asks. “You have such a good one.”

“Sure,” Rory says. She heelflips, surprising herself with a first-try make.

“OK, now can you just stand still on your board?”

She does as he asks, and Larry walks slowly around her in a circle, his camera pointed at her. He makes three laps.

“What was that for?” Rory asks.

“Just trying something,” Larry says. “I’ll show you later.”

They arrive at Clipper and Rory helps Larry assemble the pieces of plywood on the stairs needed for a proper run-up. They have a drill and everything. Building the roll-in ramp is quite a process, one she’s surprised they prepared for so thoroughly. Most crews who drive up from LA expect the locals to do things like this for them. These guys are the definition of pro.

Until they’re not. Another strange thing happens. Deon doesn’t really skate the famous hubba either. Well, he skates it, the same way he skated the small one. A few basics, a few bails. A back grind, a noseslide fakie. No real attempts at anything she knows he’s capable of. He just tosses a few impossible tricks, even for Deon. One flail looked like a big flip back tail, another some sort of nollie tre flip to something. The kind of tricks one might joke about. Then he just sits down. Larry doesn’t even seem bothered or disappointed. In fact, he seems pleased. Larry looks to Rory who is now standing at the top of the hubba, staring grimly at its crusty, battered edge. Nothing about the hubba looks appealing. And yet, it’s beautiful. This weathered slab of concrete, a source of desire for so many around the planet. They come to conquer this. And yet she can’t muster the courage to grind it.

“You got something you want to try?” Larry asks, now at the bottom of the stairs with his thirty thousand dollars in hand. “I got you.”

“Yeah, I think so,” she lies. In theory, yes, she wants to try all sorts of things. But not in the real world. Not today, with these still-quivering legs.

“You got it!” Deon yells from across the schoolyard. “Grind that bitch.”

She walks up the stairs to the top of the ramp they built. She tries to shut off all her thoughts, all her doubts. The best moments she’s had on her board are when she doesn’t think. Dropping in, she picks up speed quickly, flying toward the hubba. She lines up parallel and for a split second convinces herself it’s just a skatepark obstacle, or a smaller version like the one she just skated. She pops and lands on the hubba in a fifty-fifty. Her trucks immediately slip out, and she jumps off her board, leaping for the asphalt. Her feet make brief contact with the ground before the remaining impact is made with her hip. The feeling in her leg is gone. Her shoulder, she now realizes, has skidded across the ground. If it wasn’t for the hoodie she put back on in their car, her skin would be torn open. It’s the worst slam she’s had in years.

“You good?” she hears Larry ask. Rory opens her eyes, still on the ground, and looks up to see them both staring down at her.

“Yeah, I think so,” she says, breathing slowly through her nose. “Just . . . can’t . . . feel my leg.” She wills herself to stand, fighting back tears. She hates that she sometimes wants to cry after falling down. The guys never cry. They’ll almost cry out from frustration—whining and screaming like babies when they can’t do a trick—but they never cry from the pain.

“I’m good,” she says, forcing a smile. She avoids their eyes, fearing she’ll find pity staring back at her. A lot of guys in the industry still don’t know how to treat women who take the unique abuse skateboarding demands. The abuse they all experience firsthand. She knows many of them see it as unnatural. Pretty girls shouldn’t slam, they think. But that’s bullshit. Pretty girls have the right to slam just as hard as anyone. And they should also be allowed to cry a little when it really hurts.

“I’m going to make an order from Pancho Villa,” Larry says after she lets them know she’s done for the day. “You want anything?”

Their burritos arrive an hour later and she’s regained feeling in her leg. After they eat, Larry asks Rory to stand on her board with her hoodie on. He films her, then films Deon, circling him with his camera at various distances. It’s weird to see these two work together after seeing so much of their completed projects. The process is tedious and bizarre. She knows that B-roll is important and time consuming, but Rory doesn’t understand why Deon hasn’t actually done any real skateboarding.

A few hours later, after driving around with them and looking at spots, Larry says he needs to do some editing work and drops Deon and Rory off a bar in the Mission. Over beers, Deon speaks to her like an old friend, lamenting that he had always wanted to live in San Francisco, but never got around to it. Nervously, she rambles, unintentionally divulging too much of her life story. Her local scene, the lack of girls to skate with, the intimidating boys she eventually impressed enough to accept her. To her surprise, Deon is more inquisitive than she expects. He asks about college, what she studied, what she does for fun outside of skating. What it’s like to be a barista. He’s genuinely kind, the way she always hoped he would be. Other famous people she’s met have been so disappointing. Self-involved and fake.

“What do your folks do for work in Louisville?” he asks.

This would be the point in their conversation where she would normally distort the truth. Offer an easy answer to avoid the ugly parts of her story. Instead, she opens up, curious to see how he reacts.

“I actually grew up with my Grandma,” she says.

“Oh, cool. I did too,” he says. She already knows this, of course. There’s almost nothing he’s told her that she hasn’t already absorbed from podcasts and interviews. “Is it cool to ask what happened to your parents?” There’s something about his eyes, and the way he asks to ask, rather than ask, that she appreciates.

“Sure,” Rory says. “They died. Car accident.”

“Damn, I’m so sorry,” Deon says.

“It’s OK,” Rory says. “It was a long time ago.” The accident doesn’t feel that long ago, but acting like it was helps fend off further prying. She’s found the phrase works as a bookend, a way to cap the conversation. She hopes in time she and Deon might become close, that this won’t be just a single chance encounter where she unloads these raw pieces of her life onto him.

“Gonna hit the bathroom,” Deon says, downing his beer. “If the waitress comes by, will you ask for another Modelo?”

While he’s away, she wonders what it would be like to tell him everything about that fateful day. How her dad was wasted, as he always was that year. How his backslide into alcoholism made her mother take Rory and move them into her friend’s living room. How one day, after Rory’s mother got off work, he forced her into his car, even though—according to her coworkers who testified at the trial—she told him repeatedly that she wouldn’t get in. How when his car collided with that tree, going over fifty in a twenty-five zone, he flew through the front windshield and her mother didn’t. How her mom’s seatbelt pinned her to her death, and the seatbelt her father wasn’t wearing saved him. How her father wasn’t actually dead, but was serving a twenty-year sentence that would end in seven years. How on the night her mother didn’t come home, she waited alone in that living room, watching more than her allotted time of her mother’s favorite TV show on DVD, getting the news as the theme song came on. And how she dreads, every single day, that he might be released early, and what his return to freedom might mean for her sanity.

Instead they talk about San Francisco skate spots and Rory’s feeling tipsy as she finishes her second beer. Deon’s had four, sipping quickly while she blabbers. He asks her so many questions, it’s like he really cares. There are moments when the conversation feels like an interview. She eventually has to go to the bathroom, and when she returns, Deon is looking at his phone. He grins and then looks up at her.

“We should go back to the hotel for a minute.”

Something in his tone seems eager, and she hesitates. Why the presumptive we? And what would only take a minute? He’s smiling at her, paying the tab and refusing her request to Venmo him for her beers.

“Let’s catch a Waymo,” he says. She goes along with everything without asking questions. There’s a magnetic pull he has on her now, and he knows it. She had hoped he wouldn’t try to sleep with her, but now, as he ushers her into the driverless car, she has accepted the disappointing truth. All men are the same. Horny and sex-driven. What strikes her as strange, is that she never caught him staring at the places men usually stare. He remained focused on her eyes, his beer, and occasionally the basketball game on one of the bar’s many TVs. There weren’t any flirtatious laughs or gestures. No hand brushing her thigh under the table. She’s blindsided by his sudden boldness. “The hotel’s only ten minutes away.”

This won’t be the first time she’s fucked a skater she had once looked up to. On her first trip to LA at twenty, a heated skatepark session with multiple mid-tier pros resulted in one of them asking for her phone number. The next day the two of them texted all afternoon. Rory assumed he wanted to skate with her, maybe introduce her to some industry people, but he ended up just inviting her to a party. She went, eager to befriend a person she’d only seen on the internet. It was a long night, ending at a house far away from everything. He’d driven her there, and he was shit-faced by the time she knew that she wanted to leave. Her phone was dead and she had no idea where her aunt’s house was. So rather than resisting, she let the guy do his thing in that dark, stranger’s bedroom, hating every second of it. In the morning, after he dropped her off at the skatepark where they met, she never heard from or saw him again. Rory still follows him on Instagram for some sick, unexplainable reason. He has a family now. She likes his cute, family photos and whatever stupid skate tricks he posts. But she could never tell you why.

“Here we are,” Deon says as they pull up to the Mark Hopkins hotel.

“Wow,” Rory says. “You guys are actually staying here?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not as nice as it looks.”

It’s still light out, and everything about this feels wrong. Deon could have at least gotten her a little more drunk. He could have waited until it was dark. She hates the thought of someone spotting her being escorted into the entrance of this expensive hotel with him. She wants him to see her as an equal, not some sort of pro-ho. But she can’t bring herself to say no. It’s easier to just go along with it.

“You’re going to trip,” Deon says as they exit the elevator on the eighth floor. She waits for him to elaborate. What will she be tripping on? The view? The size of his bed? His erection? He uses a key card to open the door, and she pauses. Closes her eyes. Don’t do this, she tells herself. Just turn around.

“Rory?” Deon says inside the room. He appears in the doorway. “Come in!”

Fuck it, she thinks, opening her eyes. She smiles and follows him inside. The room is dark, and she sees Larry in the corner of the room, having transformed a small desk into a full editing bay. Cameras out, black cords everywhere. A monitor and his laptop open with skate videos playing.

“There she is!” Larry says. “Did you tell her anything?”

“No, I haven’t said a word,” Deon says enthusiastically. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“What’s going on?” Rory asks. Whatever she thought this was, it’s not that. She’s embarrassed now, hating herself for now feeling slightly disappointed that Deon isn’t going to try to have sex with her.

“Have a seat,” Larry says, standing up from his chair. “Dee, will you get the lights?” The room is dark, save for the illuminated screen. An unfamiliar editing program is open.

“You ready?” Larry asks.

“Yeah, I guess,” Rory says, laughing nervously. Larry clicks the spacebar, and the screen is filled by a wide shot of the hubba from this morning. In slow motion, Rory approaches, crouching down. The quality is beautiful, almost three dimensional on this screen. She hardly believes it’s real. The angle switches to a fisheye, spreading the grey hubba wide across the screen. Rory, to her amazement, releases from the squat and executes an immaculate heelflip frontside nosegrind.

“What the fuck?” she squeals. It’s all she can do not to scream. The camera angle switches back to the wide shot, and she performs another trick she never did—never even conceived of doing. A trick even more inconceivable than the heelflip nosegrind. Before she has time to ask what is going on, she’s watching herself roll up to the giant Clipper hubba. Here, unlike what happened in real life, she executes a perfect frontside noseblunt. She watches it from a fisheye and long lens perspective. She doesn’t understand. She’s watching something that didn’t happen, but did it? Did she black out and learn a new trick? Larry plays the tricks again as she stares. When the clips end, she repeats the only words that come to her. “What. The. Actual. Fuck!”

“Pretty amazing, huh?” Deon says. “Doesn’t it look real?”

“I don’t understand . . . how did you . . .”

“AI,” Larry says. “We’ve been playing with it for the last two years. Watch!” Larry moves the mouse around, clicking things, then punches the spacebar again. On the screen, Deon does five of the most mind-blowing tricks she’s ever seen. A nollie backside flip into a perfectly pinched switch front crook down the small hubba. A backside flip into a switch frontside 5-0. He does another but comes back to regular. On Clipper, he does a bigflip backside tailslide, somehow captured from three different angles. Then a nollie tre into a backside nosegrind. It’s unbelievable. She doesn’t see a trace of anything artificial. It’s her favorite skateboarder, doing what she’s always watched him do. But . . . better? More clear. Extra flawless. There’s even a shot to his face after the trick, showing his patented smile. Not the same one that was joking with her earlier at the bar, but similar. It’s a victorious smile, an exhausted and relieved smile. But it isn’t real. He never smiled like that today.

“Pretty sick, right?” Deon says. “Larry’s a fucking master.”

“I still don’t understand,” Rory says. “How does it look so real?”

“Ever since this technology hit, I’ve been toying with it,” Larry says. “At first it was just for fun, but it started to really . . . work. Then we slipped a few AI tricks into one of Deon’s Youtube videos, just to see if people could tell. It was just a throwaway edit. But no one said a word. Then we just kinda ran with it.”

The word comes to her mouth, but she doesn’t have the nerve to say it. Cheater. Her hero, is a fucking cheater.

“So we were thinking . . .” Deon starts, and for the first time in her presence, he seems nervous. “We want to start a new board brand, and we would really like to have you be a part of it. Small team, but it’s going to be legendary. We’re hoping to drop it next month. It would be easy work to fit you in. A couple sessions like today, and then we let Larry do his thing.”

“We want to make you the next big thing in skateboarding,” Larry says. “And with this tech, you will be.”

Rory is trying to slow her breathing, working to pause the heaving and near panic level panting. Her cheeks are going red again. This is so fucking weird. In another universe, this would be her dream. But this is so twisted and bizarre and fucked up. It would have been way simpler if Deon had just tried to sleep with her.

“I don’t know,” she finally says. “It feels kind of . . . wrong?”

“Look, I get it,” Larry says. “It’s a little weird. But you have to look at it in simple terms. Skateboarding is entertainment. We’re creating entertainment. You know the old magazines? Half the photos that were published in those weren’t the actual makes. Probably more than half.”

“But the skater eventually did the trick,” Rory says. “Even if the photo wasn’t the exact moment they landed it.”

“Not all the time. I know a lot of guys who had photos published of tricks they never landed.”

“OK,” Rory says. “But this is still different. This is straight-up lying.”

“Try to look at it like storytelling,” Larry says. “Storytelling always involves some lying. Look, it’s still your style, it’s still you.”

“And we can make sure you get a fat contract with Lissé,” Deon says.

“That’s right,” Larry says. “We know they’re looking for the next big girl. The ‘it’ girl. Their women’s team is weak right now. Just OG’s from the early 2000’s with no real marketing potential. They need someone fresh. And if we do this right, you can easily be that girl.”

“I know for a fact that Lissé has the budget for a couple mil. We know what kind of money they throw around.” Deon and Larry give each other a pound. Did they really just say “a couple mil?” As in millions? Plural? She wonders if that’s why they wanted her to wear Deon’s new pro model shoe. Was this their plan all along? All the questions she had from earlier suddenly have answers. Was their coffee order a coincidence? Had they known where to find her? She coughs as they stare at her.

“Sorry, but this is just a lot,” she says. “So you make me look better than I am in a video. You get me a big contract with lots of money. And then what? Is there any sort of . . . catch?”

“We build!” Deon says. “And you don’t have to do any of the suffering, no more shitty slams like the one you took today.”

“But what about, like, I don’t know. What’s the incentive for you guys to make me this big superstar?”

“Well, there will be a small commission,” Larry says. “But mainly, we just need you to build the brand. The women’s market is huge! Eventually we want to do apparel, and the whole nine. And we think you’d be perfect.”

“Look at Larry like an agent,” Deon says. “And if it helps, look at yourself like a model. I don’t know if you’ve done modeling gigs, but it’ll be no different. Just pays a lot more. But it’s not even about the money for us. We want to make beautiful videos. We want to grow a brand. And we want to make you the richest girl who ever skated.”

---

Seven months later, Rory wakes up with another hangover. She’s in a studio apartment in West Hollywood, and there are three random guys sleeping on different surfaces. Thankfully she’s in bed alone, though she vaguely remembers shoving the blond one away right before passing out. Her phone says it’s almost one in the afternoon, but you wouldn’t know it. Every day she wakes up with a mixture of gratitude and resentment for the blackout curtains she installed after moving in three months ago.

There had been no reason for her to keep drinking at the Roger Room until closing. And there was certainly no reason to invite these randos to come do cocaine in her apartment until six in the morning. But yesterday, she didn’t have anything important to do, and today she doesn’t either. Except maybe to visit her grandmother, who she hasn’t seen in a few days. And then maybe to pinch herself, and wonder how this is all really her life now.

As Deon and Larry promised, seemingly overnight, they turned her into a star. Less than a month after meeting them, in a surprise YouTube video released with little fanfare, Rory Gladwell was introduced to the world as the best female skateboarder alive. There were only twelve tricks, but they were so shocking, so advanced for women’s skating up to that point, that she was pretty much the only thing worth talking about in the skate media landscape for weeks. Where did she come from? How did she get so good? Who is her shoe sponsor? As they also predicted, Lissé quickly jumped on the bandwagon and Larry and Deon negotiated a huge contract for her. They feigned a cage match for her signature, roping Nike and Vans into the ring. But Lissé won, settling on two million dollars, paid out over three years. The largest shoe contract in women’s skateboarding history. Rory was so exciting for the industry, so novel, she almost overshadowed Deon’s own incredible AI-generated video part, the real intended focus of the release. But Deon didn’t seem to mind losing the attention. Creating the legend of Rory Gladwell from scratch seemed to be all he and Larry cared about.

Rory watched her socials jump from a measly seven thousand followers on Instagram and TikTok, to a combined 900k on both platforms. Posting the individual clips racked up millions of views. Almost all of her favorite skaters started following her. A bunch of them sent her friendly DM’s, many of them sounding a bit too thirsty. It felt strange to leave them “seen,” these men she had looked up to for so many years. The attention was nonstop. She was the focus of dozens of different podcasts. Too many articles to keep track of. Mainstream media even picked up on the sensation. Rory watched and read everything and hated how everyone focused on her looks. The undertone was a general shock that such a stereotypically attractive woman could be so good at skating. Before her, the best female skaters were usually children, and the industry watched them grow up. Following the contract, life quickly felt removed from reality. Which made sense. Rory Gladwell the skateboarder was a fictional character. Nothing about what she’d done to become this new, famous person was real.

Rory doesn’t care that her Nespresso machine is loud. After making thousands of espressos drinks at coffee shops over the years, slamming the bowl and hearing the coffee beans grind, it’s a relief to just press a little button and watch the coffee come out. She opens the blinds and light pours in, momentarily blinding her. One of the boys on the floor stirs from the noise. She makes another coffee, just to be louder. She spots the blond guy sleeping on the floor closest to her bed, and wonders if he really thought she would hook up with him with his friends right there in the room. What an idiot. In LA, she only seems to attract idiots. Her head is pounding as she sips her coffee. She checks her phone and scans the notifications. Lots of reposts, a slew of flattery she’s grown tired of hearing. In the beginning, she tried deleting all the comments about her breasts, but it’s a constant wave she can’t control. It still amazes her that the AI was able to simulate their movement so well. Seen in slow motion, they are unmistakably her breasts. But they aren’t, they were made by a computer. They had become the internet’s breasts. And once she convinced herself of this strange fact, she stopped caring what people said about them.

“Hey, you,” she says, lightly kicking the Black guy on her carpet. “Gotta go.” She repeats herself to the other two guys. They groan. Rub their eyes, adjust their groins. And through squints and sniffles and morning coughs, the three men shuffle out of her apartment and she can finally sit in peace.

---

Her grandmother knows nothing of the massive deception that has made them rich. Nonna is simply delighted that the world finally recognizes her granddaughter’s hard work. The care facility Rory found is only two miles away from her apartment, but she hadn’t anticipated that this would still involve a ten to twenty minute commute by car, depending on traffic. She could walk it in less time, but no one walks in Los Angeles. And besides, she loves her new electric car. Larry and Deon encouraged her to buy new things. She wonders if it’s because they think this income stream will last forever, or the opposite. Do they know it won’t, so they think she should enjoy it while she has it? Which, with the way she’s spending, won’t be long.

Yesterday, her second quarterly wire payment came in and the number bothered her. $166,666. And 66 cents. When she did the math, she was disturbed to find that she would be making exactly $666,666 each year. Even the cents came out to .666. Sure, after taxes and Larry’s commission her take home is different, but those aren’t the numbers she has to think about and see in her bank account. Rory had long given up on religion, and God, and any idea she once had of “the Devil,” but she still hates all those fucking sixes. Every three months, for the next three years. It doesn’t sit well with her.

In tandem with the income and her social media following, the numbers making up her living expenses have increased astronomically. To think she had once lived comfortably off only two thousand dollars per month! How had she done it? Her apartment now costs four thousand and Nonna’s new home is ten. After the down payment, her car still costs a little over a grand and she somehow spends over five thousand dollars every month on dinners, drinks and random shit she doesn’t need. The pace with which everything has become so costly is difficult to gauge and impossible to stop.

Whether it’s the hangover anxiety, the headache, or the new number in her bank account, she decides she can’t see Nonna today. She’ll call instead. Rory has always loved talking about coincidences and numbers with Nonna. Her last superstitious indulgence. Like the time when she was little and she got three dollars and thirty three cents as change at the grocery store. “That’s good luck, dear” Nonna said. “Best luck. Can’t beat three threes.” One time she was with Nonna and looked at her phone and the time displayed her birthday, seven seventeen. Nonna made her make a wish, and assured her the wish would come true. The old lady loves searching for meaning in the meaningless, and numbers are her favorite. And on top of Nonna’s belief that every coincidence contains a secret message, the woman is also certain that God is always involved. Or the Devil. It’s a flip of the coin. Rory usually plays along, but has long lost the belief. The coincidence conversations always felt like a joyful exercise, or entertainment. A way to connect with her sweet, eccentric and rapidly aging grandmother. But the deposit numbers change things. They’re too exact. She tries to convince herself that it’s just the guilt of the big lie, or the vodka poison working its way out of her body. She can’t help thinking maybe it is something else.

“Hey, just checking in,” Rory says into her phone. Nonna is still new to her cell phone, and it takes several calls before a nurse answers and gets the phone into her hands.

“That’s wonderful, dear. So nice to hear your voice. Will I see you today?”

“I can’t make it today,” Rory says. “Busy work day.”

She’s lying in her bed with nothing but a wet towel on her forehead. The cold shower did nothing for her, and putting on clothes would be a pointless exercise.

“Good for you, dear,” her grandmother says. “I haven’t seen your mother in a while, why hasn’t she called?” Rory closes her eyes and tells herself to breathe slowly. Go along with it, she reminds herself. No sense in correcting her.

“She will,” Rory says. “I just talked to her.”

“How is she?” Nonna asks. The sincerity in her voice both baffles and infuriates her. “And your father, I miss him. Tell him to come by.” Rory often wonders what he’s been writing to her lately. She gives Nonna every forwarded envelope, but never hears anything. It’s possible she forgets their contents, or refuses to believe her son is in prison.

The home, and Rory’s ability to pay for it, couldn’t have been more timely. Before dementia, her grandmother’s issues were rooted in her osteoarthritis. Pain management was the problem. But her Alzheimer’s decline was steep, a drastic shift into constant confusion. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to it. She wasn’t locked in any specific time period or era. It was like her memory was in flux, moving from a previous decade to the present, spurred by faces and photographs or seemingly nothing at all. The physical pain remained, but her memory of it often didn’t, making the onsets all the more terrible. Two weeks ago, when Rory visited, for five seconds her grandmother looked at her like she’d never seen her before. Like Rory was a stranger! And then, boom! Her loving smile broke, tears welling with joy. Rory worries that the next time one of these lapses will happen they’ll be mid-conversation. The most consistent period Nonna seems to find herself in is when Rory’s mother and father were still together, and death and alcohol and tragedy hadn’t ruined all of their lives.

---

There were new rules, Larry had said. Deon was with him, nodding along. They were at Deon’s mansion, a week before the video was released. He lives in Laguna, an hour south of LA. His house rests on top of a hill, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The attention to detail is masterful. Stunning art, mini sculptures, and enormous picture windows. Rory could hardly take her eyes off the marble kitchen counter in the center of the kitchen. She’d never seen marble so thick.

“You have to be careful at skateparks,” Larry continued. “Just cruise around. Best to pretend like you have an injury. People’s expectations will be high, they’ll want to see you perform. It’s normal for pro skaters to just cruise parks, but just be careful not to overdo it.”

“Overdo it?”

“You know, like start doing tricks that might expose the . . . gap. Your abilities in the video will set a new standard. And skaters aren’t dumb.”

“And everyone has their own video camera,” Deon added, flashing his iPhone. “You gotta remember, people will film you without asking.”

“We had an incident a few months ago,” Larry said. “Dee was skating Cherry, and kept missing a backside noseblunt on the ledge. Some fucker posted a video on Youtube, questioning how Deon could ever flip in and flip out if he couldn’t even do a basic one. It went a little viral, and—”

“Nothing happened with it,” Deon said, defensively. “But it was annoying.”

“That’s why we built a private park,” Larry said. “So you and Deon can skate in private, at your real level, and still have fun.”

There’s one public park she knows is safe. A place where she can sweat and be outside, and do the thing she loves. Away from a musty warehouse with zero ventilation or AC. She hates the training facility. It usually takes two hours with traffic, and Deon is rarely ever there. She can’t bring friends, not that she’s made any real ones in LA, and she hates the smell inside. It’s also a scary place. A deserted industrial park filled with anonymous warehouses is the last place she wants to be alone. So she goes to the park with lots of deep bowls. She’s not a transition skater, so no one will expect her to do anything crazy. She can pump around, scratch the coping, activate leg muscles she wouldn’t use otherwise. Sweat out the booze and drugs from her system. Maybe afterwards she’ll be capable of facing Nonna. Considering her forgetfulness, Rory might be able to honestly confess her sins. Unload her burden on someone who loves her unconditionally. And then, within a few days, it’ll be like it never happened.

Instead she skates until she slams, hanging up in the deep end of the biggest bowl. She falls straight to her shoulder, her neck whipping her head to the concrete. Not hard enough to knock her out or even swell a bump, but enough to freak her out. She lies there, wanting to scream in pain, but holds it in. I deserve this, she thinks. A fully padded older bowl troll knee-slides down to inspect the injury and make sure she’s not concussed.

“I’m fine,” she says. He doesn’t recognize her. A soul skater, out of the loop, thank God.

“That was a rough one, sweetie,” he says, with a voice straight out of The Californians. “You sure that shoulder isn’t broken? Or your collarbone?”

“No, it’s OK,” she says, rotating it. It hurts like hell, but she won’t be a victim. She stands up, waving off his assisting arm. “I’m fine.”

“You’re one bad chicka,” he says. He pats her on the back and she twists away from his hand.

“Thanks for checking on me,” Rory says. She could use a boost getting out of the bowl, but she won’t ask this guy for help. She tosses her board up, pulls herself out with her good arm, and walks back to her car.

---

She doesn’t touch her board for two months while her shoulder heals. She doesn’t slow down the drinking, either. Timing her visits with Nonna in the evening when her hangover has slipped away, but right before she’s started drinking again is perfect. Not quite clear-headed when they talk, but neither is Nonna. Her confusion is getting worse. Today Nonna asked why her own mother doesn’t answer her calls. Rory is pretty sure her great-grandmother died in 1980, which means Nonna must think she’s somewhere in the 1970’s, the farthest back she has gone so far.

“Her phone must be broken,” Rory says.

“Well, she should fix it,” Nonna says. “Her only daughter is trying to call her! Will you tell her, if you see her, Rory? I’d really like to speak with her about something important.” What’s it like to live in two time periods at once? Rory wants to ask. How can you know me, but also think your mother is still alive? Instead, she asks about her mom.

“What did you think of her when you first met her?”

“Oh, your mother was gorgeous, simply gorgeous,” Nonna says. “I liked her straight away. She’s tough on my boy, tougher than I was. And it’s good for him.”

“How did they meet?” Rory asks. She knows the story, but likes to hear Nonna tell it.

“They fell in love working together, if I recall. That awful McDonalds. Really, you should ask them, dear. I wasn’t there. I just heard about it.”

“But you really liked her? Right away?”

“How could I not?” Nonna says. “She’s one in a million. I meant to call her yesterday, they had Gilmore Girls on the television. She loves that show. We used to watch it together, with you too. And before, that’s how you got your name. Did you know that? I never did love it like she did, but it made me think of her. How come she hasn’t been by to visit?”

---

“So we’re thinking of making another video,” Larry says. Deon is next to him, staring at his phone. They’re in Venice, sitting at a restaurant known for its nightlife, down the street from where Larry lives. Food has just arrived at their table. Rory flags down the waitress and asks for another vodka sonic. “China spots are insane,” Larry continues. “I got a guy who has scouted a couple cities for us, and he’ll give us any pin we need. We’re going to bring in a new kid from Japan, little phenom.”

“Cool,” Rory says. This will be her first international trip with them.

“How’s your shoulder?” Larry asks. “Will you be able to skate?” She can’t stop herself from snorting. She could have a full body cast, and it wouldn’t make a difference to him or the video he intends to create.

“It’s better,” she says.

“What happened again?” Deon asks, looking up from his phone for the first time since they sat down. She knows he’s angry with her for getting hurt. That with their arrangement, injuries should be a thing of the past.

“Hung up skating this bowl,” she says. “I was just cruising around.”

“That’s right,” he says. She can see he no longer cares. So long as she hasn’t compromised the arrangement by street skating in public. Rory still wishes their relationship had become something more than it is. She never wanted anything romantic, but figured he’d be a mentor, or at least a friend. Not a best friend or anything, but a skate friend. They were conspirators, partners in a crime, yet he still feels like little more than an acquaintance. He has never once made time to hang out with her one-on-one. Never once invited her to dinner at his home, or to skate with him at the warehouse. Larry has, acting as a proper team manager should, but every encounter with Deon feels artificial, every conversation lacking authenticity. She senses now that his initial kindness was a performance. A charming act. Which makes sense, given the direction his life is going.

“So glad you’re feeling better,” Larry says. “I hate skating transition. I’d stay away from those bowls if I were you.” She can’t stand the condescension in his tone. “Well, we’re thinking we’ll leave in two weeks. Should be mellow. Just a ten day trip. Deon has a role in a new Apple TV show, so he has to be back by the first of next month. You haven’t been to China, right?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“It’s something to see,” Larry says. “At least once. Spots will blow your mind.”

Nine months ago, an all expense trip to China would have made her froth at the mouth. The sort of opportunity only available to the sponsored elite. But today, she wants to get it over with as soon as possible. They make small talk for the next half hour as they eat their food. Rory isn’t hungry, but she eats her dry fish tacos anyway. She finally catches a buzz as her fifth drink arrives. Rory sees how Larry and Deon are looking at her, but she doesn’t care.

“There’s one thing I should tell you,” Larry says. His voice, combined with the way he’s looking at her, has a fatherly intonation, making her suddenly uneasy. “There’s a video circulating on YouTube that, well . . .” Larry looks around the restaurant. Lowering his voice, he continues. “The video suggests that your skating is . . . fake.”

“It is,” Rory says, chuckling. “Are you that surprised?” She immediately regrets the bitchiness of the question.

“Well, yeah, we are a little surprised. Anyway, it’s been gaining views. Apparently this asshole dug up some iPhone angle of you falling at Clipper. I don’t know who filmed it, but they must have been outside the school. Bad luck. Anyway, he makes this whole investigation into the tricks you did there, and elsewhere, and it’s not good. We’re working on getting it taken down.” Downing the rest of her vodka sonic, she feels her heart flutter with what is initially anxiety, but slowly blends into relief. Maybe this is what she needs. An exposé. A public revelation that they’re all cheaters. The money is nice, but deep down she knows this all needs to end.

“Who is he?”

“Same guy that tried to come at me,” Deon says. “Just some fucking nerd. He’s got something personal against me, I think.”

“How are people responding?” Rory asks. “Like, in the comments.”

“Fortunately, there are a lot of people defending you. Calling him sexist, a misogynist. Which is good, honestly. For now. I don’t think people believe him, it should fizzle out in a few days. But I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

---

The video doesn’t fizzle. It catches an unlucky wave, the debate more viral than the accusation itself. Everyone wants to weigh in, like some sort of high stakes political campaign. It’s impossible for Rory to not watch it all happen in real time. Strangers bitterly arguing with strangers in the comment sections on every social media platform and skateboarding forum. There is so much passion, so much hate, and so much blaming of hate. She agrees with each side. Yes, it’s wrong to accuse the woman of not being as good as she claims to be. And yes, isn’t it obvious that the woman is a fraud? Somehow, she wants both sides to win. Rory hasn’t weighed in or responded to anything herself. She won’t even open her direct messages on any platform. There’s a true ugliness lurking there. Anonymous men who have decided to loathe her with all their being. Men who threaten to do terrible things to her as punishment. Boys who, a part of Rory thinks, are right to hate her for lying and making millions of dollars from it. The only comment that doesn’t sit well with her, that she can’t stop thinking about, is the one pinned to the top on YouTube. She knows the commenter personally and already despises him.

“I grew up skating with her,” the comment from JimmyTheJuice reads. “There’s no way this ISN’T AI. Sorry to say she could never be that good.” Jimmy Pinole. That scrawny fuck. “Sorry to say I beat you in S.K.A.T.E. when I was thirteen and you can’t get over it,” she types as a reply. Then deletes. “Sorry to say I didn’t want to suck your dick in the bathroom at the skatepark when I was fourteen you fucking pedo,” she types, then deletes. Calling him a pedo isn’t totally fair. He was sixteen at the time. But accusing him of being one would feel good. “Sorry to say you’re a hometown hero who never made it because you weren’t good enough.” Delete. “Sorry to say you’re a deadbeat dad who smokes meth.” There are so many things she could write about Jimmy Pinole, but she closes the website before the keyboard aggression gets the best of her. It’s not worth it. In truth, she’s surprised more of her friends from back home haven’t jumped into the debate. There’s a silence there, an uncomfortable void.

Several of her skater friends reached out when all the success began. They were happy for her, amazed by her apparent leveling up after moving to California. Most of the boys she grew up with offered encouragement and support. “Always knew you’d make it!” “Love the progression! Keep it up!” “You’re insane! Don’t forget the little people.” She hadn’t forgotten them. In fact, she sent a bunch of those guys from the skatepark care packages. The ones who had always been nice to her received free shoes, shirts and boards. Rory hadn’t thought about it at the time, but were those bribes? Had she, without intending to, paid for their silence?

“You seem distracted, dear,” Nonna says. She’s been sitting next to her grandmother for a while, massaging her hands the way she used to do back in Louisville. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, I’m all good,” Rory says. “Just stuff at work.” Nonna looks at her, puzzled. It’s clear she’s forgotten everything about the money and what it is that Rory does for “work.” She wonders if she even knows they’re in Los Angeles.

“Have you heard from your father?” Nonna asks. “He hasn’t called or written in a long time. I’m beginning to worry.” Rory switches hands, gently rubbing Nonna’s wrinkled wrist before stroking her thumb, and then individual fingers. The truth is, she has heard from him, indirectly. She wouldn’t even try to explain it to Nonna, but during one of her masochistic doom scrolls, this time on Instagram, she found a comment that sent her spiraling. “Your father is proud of you,” it read. She clicked on the profile, private with a description reading, “Luke 23:39.” She Googled the name and found an article from twenty years ago about a burglary gone wrong. First degree murder. A friend from prison.

“Nonna, do you like it here?” Her grandmother appears to snap out of an aimless stare, making direct eye contact with Rory.

“It’s lovely, I suppose,” Nonna says. “But I miss my chair.”

“Let’s leave.” Rory helps her grandmother out of bed, packs up everything she deems essential while Nonna directs, and they walk out of the care facility.

“Where are we going, dear?” Nonna asks as Rory helps buckle her seatbelt.

“The airport,” Rory says. “And then home. I’m done with all of this.”

“Done with what?”

“Everything,” Rory says, and for once she actually believes what she hears herself saying. Everything must end. It’s time to blow it all up. “And you know what?”

“What, dear?”

“I miss your chair, too.”

I always thought skateboarding was too nuanced to fake, and thus safe from the tentacles of artificial intelligence. But then I watched Chris Joslin treflip El Toro, years before actually doing it. And that wasn’t even AI. That was just some clever editing. I haven’t seen any convincing AI-generated skateboarding yet, and I hope we never do. This was an exercise in imaging that world.

If you’d like to read more stories from my ongoing collection, The Streets of Lissé, subscribe here or consider my novels: Top of Mason, Off Clark, and High Street Lows. You can purchase a print copy, download them for your Kindle, or listen to them on Spotify, Audible or wherever you listen to audiobooks.